


Burning All the Tough Times (Possessions Gained and Lost Remix)

by anthrop



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Ouroboros Mix, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-04 01:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthrop/pseuds/anthrop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You might think that the angry boy with the 3D glasses is the shopkeeper. He will almost always be sitting on his laptop on the East side of the third floor. Don't ask him for anything, he will not help you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 000000 + ffffff  ==> 0000ff + ff0000

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oxfordRoulette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordRoulette/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Possessions Gained and Lost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/604518) by [oxfordRoulette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordRoulette/pseuds/oxfordRoulette). 



> OxfordRoulette, as soon as I saw the summary for _Possessions Gained and Lost_ I knew that was the one for me. Thank you for the opportunity to remix it, and I hope you like what I've done with your brilliant au.
> 
> Everybody else, go read the original story first. Go ahead, I'll wait. 
> 
> (Title comes from "[This Boy's In Love](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKwnc7QpUt0&list=FL-l8dw1JNMtePZsRGoDWY3Q&index=8)" by The Presets.)

A bell jangles on the door when you press it open, bounces off something heavy on the floor and hits your cane hard enough to sting. A sense of incredible clutter hits you. Fuzzy light slips through a window on your left, on the same wall as the door. It’s big, with thin curtains or no curtains at all as far as you can tell.

“Hello?” you call loudly as you ease your way deeper into the house. Your cane leads you down a tight path curling through lumpy towers of junk. “Is somebody home?”

Muffled heel clicks echo through a narrow passage somewhere directly ahead of you. “Oh hello there!” says a woman’s voice. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the bell.”

She stops a few feet from you. You hear the soft rustle of fabric. A dress, something flouncy. Ruffled. Maybe a lot of layers? You aren’t so good at fashion-y words.

“Uh, the kid on your porch said this was a store so I really hope I’m not breaking and entering?” You wouldn’t be surprised if you were though. You’ve had people fuck with you before. This wouldn’t be the first time you’d tapped your way into a little old granny’s parlor, although this little old granny sounds kind of hot?

“Kid?” She asks. Three quick heel clicks away from you, towards the windows. You pick out her blurred shape silhouetted against the light stretching down to the triangle shape of a gown. “That’s funny, I don’t see anyone out there now.” Four heel clicks towards you. You move your cane just in case. “Oh well, people come and go very quickly around here, it’s hard to keep track. You’re right, this is my pawn shop! Are you looking for anything specific?”

You chew the inside of your mouth. “Do you have a phone I could use?  I--well, it sounds stupid coming from a grown ass adult, but I’m kind of lost.”

There’s an obvious smile to her laugh. “That’s not stupid at all! You’d be surprised how many wayward travelers end up here. The phone’s by the register.”

You can’t help the grimace. “Uh, I’m gonna need better directions than that, lady. My vision isn’t all that great.” You tap the frame of your sunglasses. Emphasis, you’ve learned, helps people make the connection.

 “Oh I’m sorry!” She has the decency to only sound embarrassed for not making that connection and not over the fact that you’re legally blind and she pities you for it. Pawn Shop Lady gets a tally mark in the mental Not a Douchebag column. “The sunglasses and cane really should have given it away, huh?”

You shrug. You don’t know what to say so you just stand there and wait. “Oh,” she says after the pause gets awkward. “If you follow me to the back--can you--?”

“I can hear just fine,” you sneer.

She laughs again. “Okay, this way.” Heel clicks and fabric noises drift back the way she came. You follow, tap-tap-tapping your cane. “My name is Aradia, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Sollux.” 

“Who are you going to call?” Her voice muffles funny. You brush your fingers against what you think is a wall and touch brittle book spines instead.

“My friend,” you reply, wiping dust off on your jeans. “I got separated from her somehow. Still not too sure how that happened, but whatever I guess. Worse things happen on road trips all the time.”

“Oh, I love road trips! It’s one of the best ways to learn new things about old places. I love history, but I bet that doesn’t surprise you!”

“Well, you do run a pawn shop.” Your voice reverbs better, and your sense of space widens again. New room. Just as cluttered. From someplace distant you hear tinny music. A record player? No, a music box.

“I think it would be better to say that the pawn shop runs me sometimes!” Her heel clicks stop. There’s the plastic clatter of a phone being taken off its cradle. “Here you go,” she says, pushing it against your hand until you take it, “Do you need help dialing?”

You brush your thumb across the buttons. “No, I got it. Thanks.” You wait a beat to see if she’s going to give you some privacy. Nope. You frown, but dial anyway. Her shop, her rules.

It picks up on the fourth ring. An unfamiliar man’s voice asks, “Hello?”

“Uh--“ Did you misdial? “Is Kanaya there?”

“Ah. Well. Are you a member of her close family?”

“The hell do you care? Where is she?” There’s a sinking feeling in your gut. Don’t bad movies start off with phone calls like this?

“There was an accident, and I’m afraid to say Kanaya Maryam did not survive. If you could please--“ You drop the phone. It hits the floor, batteries skittering across the hardwood. You feel sick.

“Bad news?”

“My friend--she’s dead.” Weird to say it. It doesn’t seem real yet. Your head full of worst-case scenarios, and you’ve always been too fucking good at worst-case scenarios.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is there anyone else you can call?”

“No. Nobody. Most of the people I knew ditched me after this happened--“ You gesture vaguely to your face and feel the tremble of your arm. “--and the rest have all kinda drifted away. Kanaya was the last person around who would put up with me. I--“ Your voice cracks. “I don’t know what to do now.”

“You could always trade something before you go.”

Pawn Shop Lady earns about fifty thousand points in the Total Douchebag column. “Wow lady, way to be fucking sensitive. I find out my best friend is dead and you try to strike a deal? Real classy.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to take advantage of your grief! I really wasn’t. I’ve just never seen death as much of a tragedy, just a change. And an _ex_ change can do wonders to improve your lot, don’t you think?”

“What the fuck do you think you have in your store that would do me any good?” You turn to tap back the way you came but then her hand is on your wrist. She’s placing something in your hand.

“Well there are always these, but I’d say they’re worth quite a lot!”

Cold metal, oval frames. Glasses? “So did you maybe just miss the bit about me being legally blind? Glasses aren’t gonna do me a whole heaping turd of good.”

“I think they could help you, Sollux.” Her blunt nails dig harder into your wrist.

You tear your hand out of her grasp, lose your balance and bump into something that digs into your leg with a metallic clang. “You’re brain damaged, you know that? _I can’t see_.”

“Put them on. Please?”

Shit, you’ve been cornered by a crazy lady in a pawn shop that has sharp metal things at shin level. The only thing to do is humor her and hope she lets you go without setting off a trap made of antique butter knives and fishing line. “Okay, holy shit okay. Just quit touching me.” You pull your sunglasses off and ease her glasses onto your face, which promptly explodes.

You’re not sure how much time passes before the searing pain fades to something manageable, how long it takes for the blinding light to resolve into shapes with dimensions and shadows and _colors_. There are a million colors going on around you, a million little knickknacks of all shapes and sizes, and oh sweet Jesus you can see again _what the fuck_.

“Well, what do you think?”

Pawn Shop Lady--Aradia--is a road flare burst of lacy red ruffles as she crouches down in front of you. Her lipstick and eyeliner are the same color as the monstrosity of a dress she’s wearing, her dark curly hair is piled high on her head and--are those _ram horns?_

“Are you a witch?”

Her teeth are small and neatly organized; you can see nearly every single tooth when she laughs. “Nope, I just run an old pawn shop!”

Belatedly you realize you’re on your ass, back pressed up against a shelf full of crumbly old books. They crackle when you shift your shoulder blades. “Are--are the glasses magic?”

“Maybe! Do you like them?”

“Yes. Fuck yes.”

“Enough to trade for them?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Those aren’t something to trade lightly, you know. What would you give me?”

“Uh--“ You look down at your cane, still gripped instinctively in your hand. It’s the only thing you have left of Terezi. “What about this? I won’t really need it anymore.”

She plucks it from you, studies the dragon head carving with wide eyes. She smiles when she finds the small button that reveals the concealed sword. “This is lovely, Sollux, but I don’t think it would do.”

“Well I don’t have anything else.”

She clicks the dragon head back into place, but doesn’t hand your cane back to you. “There’s always yourself.”

You laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope! You said so yourself; now that your friend has died you don’t have anything else. Why not stay with me? I’ve been needing another set of hands around the shop, and I promise to only keep you as long as I need you. How does that sound?”

She’s right. There’s nothing and no one left for you now. “You know what? Fuck it. I’ll trade myself for your magic sunglasses. You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Excellent!” She looks back at your cane in her hand, a strange smile on her face. “You know, you’re right; you won’t be needing this anymore. For a defensive weapon like this, I might trade for something a little more... _aggressive._ How does that sound?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. You grin.


	2. e00707

Aradia gives you free reign to pick a room and call it yours, but there’s no real privacy in a huge old Victorian house-made-pawn-shop. None of the doors lock and even the bathroom is cluttered with wooden boxes full of old postcards and creepy ceramic ducks. You adjust quickly to strangers poking through your niche up in the easternmost corner of the third floor, but you draw the line at talking to them. Heavy lifting? Sure, that’s a thing you would have done with minimal complaint even without your incredibly badass laser magic. But helping single mommy with two kids and a slew of angst she’s desperate to share with the first person she can get her claws into? _Pass_.

Besides, as you have tried to make abundantly clear to Aradia, you’re kind of busy re-teaching yourself how to read and make good general use of having working eyeballs again? Yeah, you might have called a few people some... inventive nicknames, but so what? Not like she can fire you or anything. Her bad for not thinking your pseudo-magical servitude all the way through.

Nngh, speaking of patrons, there goes the bell again. There’s that little beat where you know Aradia’s checking out whoever just walked in; this side of the patron-owner relationship you’ve learned she already knows exactly what a person is willing to trade before they even say a word. She insists it isn’t magic, and you actually believe her.

“Welcome to my pawn shop!” she says. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

You don’t hear any reply, but there’s a modest pause before Aradia says, “Really? I’m going to be on TV?” Oh god, if Pawn Stars just walked in you are busting out of here and not looking back. Okay, that would probably be literal since it would void your first trade with Aradia, but still. You didn’t sign up to be on reality television.

“Alright,” Aradia says after a longer pause. “Take all the pictures you want! But on one condition: you have to trade something before you go.”

This one-sided conversation thing is bullshit. Normally you don’t have any trouble hearing the patrons. This guy must be some kind of champion mumbler. You lay one hand flat on the wood floor and switch on the lightshow. The tingle raises the hairs on the backs of your arms, and you tune in to hear the patron say, “--not giving you a chicken in exchange for three sacks of potatoes.”

Aradia laughs. “Let me know if there’s something you’re looking for.”

The guy doesn’t reply immediately, but you hear the snap of a camera shutter go off a few times.

“What’s your name?”

“Give me yours, Aradia,” replies the guy, “and I’ll give you mine.”

Another laugh. “Well, as you already can tell from the sign outside, yes, it is Aradia.”

“Dave.” Didn’t you know a Dave before? Nah, name’s almost as common as John. It couldn’t be the same insufferable prick.

“Where are you from?”

“One of the great shames of America: Texas.” Another shutter click. There’s probably a few thousand Daves in Texas alone; you definitely don’t recognize that twang.

“Oh, you’ve come a long way then! Got any family at home?”

“Not really. My brother who raised me is long gone, pushing daisies just like the show _Pushing Daisies_. My sister is, uh, estranged? I guess that’s the best way to describe it. She’d be proud of my word selection. We used to be close, but she just got fucking weird. Into cult stuff and summoning pigeon Satan and what-not. Still follows my blog though.” A pause that gives your stomach time to sink. Oh god, it _is_ Strider. How the fuck did he end up in this town? “I had a best buddy who was like family. We were chums, man. He gave me these lenses. Keeps me cool in front of the sexy-ass ladies like you. But he’s not at home, anymore. His sister isn’t either.”

You think about going downstairs. You hope he doesn’t come upstairs. You _really_ hope Aradia doesn’t trade anything with him. “Look--“ Dave sounds dazed, “--I don’t know why I said all that shit. I usually don’t say that sort of stuff to random strangers in shops. Especially not ones with giant ram horns, I mean, that’s for sure a first.”

“Sometimes there’s something about being in a shop full of antiques,” Aradia says. “It brings out the past.”

Dave doesn’t reply, but you hear the floorboards creak as he walks away, snapping pictures as he wanders through the shop. Maybe he’ll stay down there. You take your hand off the floor and start typing again. Maybe he’ll just go away and you can pretend you never heard the bell ring.

“Whoa, long time no see dude,” Dave says in the doorway of your room. “Or spidey sense for you, I guess.”

You flinch and glare at him over your laptop. You forgot how fucking quiet he can walk. “Wow, you’re twice as stupid-looking as you sound,” you sneer by way of hello. He is too. His coat doesn’t fit well, his hair’s sticking up in the back, and his face is only half-shaven.

His eyebrows make an appearance over those stupid sunglasses. “So the Lisping Wonder’s got working eyes now, huh? Nice shades by the way. Steal them from your first 3D movie?” He snaps a shot of you with one of what, three cameras hanging off his neck? Who the fuck needs that many cameras at one time?

You lash out a spark of red at his feet, scorching his shoelaces. “Stop. Fucking, taking pictures. I’m not some museum piece you snatchstain.”

Dave doesn’t even flinch. “Nice to see you so peppy, _Thollux_.” He walks out before you can gear your psionics up properly. Ugh. Just. Fuck that guy. You never understood how Rose could be related to him.

You try to ignore him now that he’s left, but curiosity soon gets the better of you. What would he trade? What the hell would Aradia ask for? You buzz in to hear Dave say, “But sometimes life is an anime, Aradia. Life is an anime,” and you wish you were down there to punch his stupid mouth.

“You have a big imagination!” Aradia sounds like she’s trying not to laugh. “But that’s not quite how it works. You’ve got kind of the right gist of things though.”

Dave takes a minute to reply. “So, I’m looking for... my bro. Not my best bro, I know where he is.” He coughs. “But I guess I just want to... see him again? You wouldn’t happen to have time traveling DJ disks or some wacked up thing like that, would you?”

You know for a fact Aradia has a set of time traveling DJ disks. You tripped over them last week and accidentally tossed yourself into April 13th, 2009 for a distressing couple of hours. But Aradia doesn’t offer Dave a trade for those, thank god. Dave with time travelling abilities sounds like a nightmare. “I’m sorry, Dave. I don’t have anything suited to those needs exactly. How about something else? Something to remember your brother by?”

Dave doesn’t say anything. Yeah, she’s got him good.

“I’ll be right back,” Aradia says, and you hear her run up the stairs to the second floor. She’s there a couple minutes, long enough you almost get up to go ask her what the hell she’s up to, but then she’s thudding down the stairs again.

Dave says, “Holy fuck,” like she’s just handed him the Holy Grail. “No way. What do I owe you?” She must have pointed or something, because he hastily says, “Oh no, I’m sorry but these mean too much to me, I can’t give these babies up. Not even for the same brand of shades my brother had.”

“No, I don’t want your sunglasses. Will you trade me for what’s under them?”

“I am also not going to rip out my eyes and present them to you on a platter.”

Aradia giggles. Girl’s got a weird sense of humor, you’ve learned. “No, silly. That’ll do just fine.”

You don’t know what she means, but after a long while Dave says, “You know what?” That’s a fair trade.”

 

=                                              

After closing time you come downstairs. Aradia’s slipping a Polaroid into her photo album, and when you look over her shoulder you see Dave’s red eyes and a few wisps of his white-blonde hair. You scoff and walk to the kitchen. Was it sunglasses she traded for that? Aradia got shortchanged in your opinion, but you know she doesn’t think so.

You briefly wonder who would ever want a picture of Dave Strider, but laugh it off. That’s Aradia’s job to figure out, not yours. You just do the heavy lifting.


	3. 4ac925

Aradia soaks up sunlight like a flower, you learn. Her favorite reading nook (and _every_ nook is a reading nook in this house) is in a room adjacent to yours, and if you sit in the right spot on your futon you can see her through the angled doorways, her dark hair haloed by the sunsets. She’s there now, though the sun is still too high to reach her bay window, and you’re pretending to teach yourself binary code when really you’re watching dust motes float past her horns.

Have you mentioned how much you like being able to see again? Because wow. _Seeing is awesome._

The front bell rings, signaling a new patron, and she’s off in bustle of red skirts and the loose thud of unlaced combat boots. You hear her slide down the bannister, and this time you creep halfway down the stairs to hear what this patron might have to say. That’s another thing you’ve learned--words are important in this place.

“Welcome to my pawn shop!” Aradia says. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

It’s a young woman’s voice that answers. “You wouldn’t happen to have any pets would you?”

“I might.” If she’s thinking about that parrot on the second floor, you let that thing go three days ago. It wouldn’t stop throwing your inventive swearing back in your face. “What kind of pet do you want?”

“Something that doesn’t mind long car trips.”

There’s a brief pause. “I’m sorry, um--“

“Jade! My name is Jade.” Funny. That’s a familiar name to go with a familiar voice, and that’s a hell of a lot less common than Dave.

“I’m sorry Jade! We don’t have any pets that really suit long car trips. Maybe I can give you something else that fits what you’re looking for?”

“I guess, I’ve been driving around for so long that it’s gotten kind of lonely. My car’s kind of small and I just want something there for me.” There’s the slightest waver in Jade’s voice, and you know Aradia’s got an addiction to sad stories.

“Are you taking a road trip?”

Jade doesn’t answer, and after a tense minute you hear a pair of swivel chairs clatter across the floor. You opt to creep farther down the stairs where you can get a good look at the two of them; Aradia’s angled Jade so she can’t see the stairs but you can see her partial profile. Jade’s darker and a hell of a lot more muscular than she sounds, but on her it looks good, especially with all that black hair pooling in a neat pile behind her. It must go to her knees when she’s standing, damn. Aradia leans forward, her face kind and attentive, and even you can’t tell if she’s faking or not.

“I miss the sense of adventure I used to have with my... grandfather.” Jade sighs. “He-He died in an accident recently. I’m kind of just, finding myself, I guess? I turned into this bawling mess and I didn’t think I was like that! I thought I was stronger than that. So I’m out finding my strength. But it’s been so lonely and I need a friend...”

“Why didn’t you bring a friend with you?”

Jade pauses, tension twisting her shoulders up to her ears. “My... dog died too, in the accident. I would have brought him along, but, poor Bec.” She shakes her head and turns away from Aradia, sniffling, and to your horror she actually crumples in on herself and starts to _sob_. “Oh my gosh,” she manages, “I am so so sorry, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this stuff. I’m usually just happy, bubbly Jade and I don’t tell anyone about this stuff. It’s just something about this place!” Her voice shakes, and she cries louder. “We were just so close! All of us…”

Aradia scoots close enough to Jade to rub her back in small circles, whispering soothing nothings until Jade finally calms down enough to sit up and dry her eyes. There’s no way this isn’t Jade Harley, your almost-friend through Rose and Kanaya. She was the girl who slipped in and out of houses at strange hours, too restless to stay anyplace for long. You only remember a handful of conversations with her. You know she’s all kinds of comfortable around guns, gardens, and quantum physics, and she doesn’t see any point to shaving her legs when it’s just going to grow back anyway. You feel like a jackass for watching her cry, but can’t quite bring yourself to slip back upstairs.

“I’m sorry, Ms... Aradia? Yeah. Um, I promise I’m not like this, spilling my guts to random people in a store. I think I should go.”

Jade makes to stand, but Aradia grabs her wrist. “Wait a second! I think I have something you need, but you have to think of something of equal value to exchange. Do you have things to trade?”

“I have... money?” Jade sniffles. “I don’t get it.”

“No, this shop doesn’t work that way! Think of trading a chicken for three sacks of potatoes. A system like that.”

Jade’s shoulders move slightly. You hope to catch a glimpse of her face properly before she leaves, because putting a face to the voice after all this time would be--something like closure, you think. “Okay...”

Aradia grins. She’s on her feet and running up the stairs before you have a chance to hide behind the wooden bench on the second floor landing, and she winks at you knowingly without stopping. You follow her at a slower pace through three crowded aisles, past the inflatable sn0wman that gives you the creeps, and to the massive pile of pirated VHS tapes you’ve both been neglecting to organize for weeks. She digs through the tapes, tossing aside things like purses shaped like owls and three left cowboy boots until she finds whatever she’s looking for with a little “Ah ha!”

“Seriously?” you ask incredulously. “You’re gonna trade her that?”

Aradia smiles. “I’ve always found the dead to be a great comfort to the living,” she replies before rushing past you and back down the stairs. You sigh and follow after.

Back on the first floor she hands Jade the taxidermied white husky. “Here you go,” she says. It’s attached to no base, sitting with its tail curved upward and its mouth open and smiling. You were the one who hid it under the VHS pile. It had been in the room you’d claimed as your own, and you didn’t like how its black marble eyes looked so full of stars.

Jade’s arms tremble when she reaches for the dog. She clutches it to her chest, nuzzles her face in its fur. “This looks just like Bec,” she whispered, and you wouldn’t be surprised at all if that was true. You never saw her dog, but Bec had been just about that size when he ran circles around your legs.

She looks up at Aradia, and there’s a grin to her voice that wasn’t there before. “Did you know we had a tradition of stuffing all our dead family members? I couldn’t do that with all of them, since it was a fire. This can be like... them accompanying me. It’s so well made.” She nuzzles the dog’s fur again. “It even smells like him. My good dog. This means... so, so much to me, Ms. Aradia.” Jade sets the dog down beside her bag, patting its head fondly. “Can I trade you something cool? I can give you my laptop. I have six more of them so you don’t need to worry about taking anything necessary to my well-being.”

“Actually,” says Aradia, “I was thinking about that little green band on your finger. What’s it for?”

“I...” Jade holds her hand up, and you see a neon rubber band on her pinky. “It’s a reminder. But you know what?” She takes it off. “I think I’ll be okay now.”

There’s a sort of ceremony to the angle of Jade’s wrist as she drops it into Aradia’s waiting hand. She straightens, like a great weight’s been lifted. Aradia holds the band between her palms like a prayer. “Thank you Jade.” You recognize the finality in Aradia’s voice. The trade has been made. The conversation is over. It’s time to say goodbye. “I hope you come visit again.”

Jade hesitates before she stands, but she doesn’t say anything. She takes her backpack and her stuffed dog, waves goodbye at the door, and she’s gone without you ever making an appearance. There’s the slight pang in your chest of a missed opportunity, but that will pass.

“Why’d you want that?” you ask from the stairs. Aradia’s twisting the rubber band between her fingers, letting the tension twang and sag along her knuckles.

“She didn’t explain what it really meant,” she replies, “but I have a feeling I can find out now.”

She doesn’t ask if you knew Jade. You don’t say that you did. She was just another patron, after all.

You go back to your room.


	4. b536da

None of the clocks are right in Aradia’s shop, including-- _somehow_ \--your laptop. When you try to Google the real time your laptop restarts, and you’ve lost enough fledgling attempts at coding and your usual twenty-two tabs of newsfeeds and blogs that you’ve learned to stop trying. Not knowing the time doesn’t bother you much; you spent half your life in the dark after all.  Still, living in a house that has shelves upon shelves of music boxes and clocks ticking and twanging all out of sync from each other is... disorienting.

Instead, you’ve learned to tell time by the clothes Aradia wears.

Mostly she sticks to reds and blacks, and some of the dresses she pulls out of dusty old boxes definitely make you wonder if she’s a time traveler (you’re pretty sure those DJ disks are still floating around, actually…). It doesn’t help she looks about as old as you are but is inexplicably knowledgeable about, well, just about _everything_ you’ve ever asked about in her shop. She knows who wrote the penciled _I love you, Dearest_ on a post card from 1886; who made the wrought iron bird wings that hang from the first floor bathroom door; how horse hair pottery is made; the complete list of who owned the set of ceramic skull-shaped shot glasses before she got her hands on them (and how they all died gruesomely); and she can recall with a strange fondness the maker of every music box in her substantial collection.

Her clothing style is as varied as the decades she's pinched them from. Big wool coats from the ‘70s. Crushed velvet dresses with puffy sleeves from the ‘30s. Bell-shaped skirts from the ‘50s. Alarming shoes that look more like murder weapons and abstract art than footwear. Shredded tights paired with hilariously bad Christmas sweaters going back sixty years. School girl uniforms from a dozen countries. Filmy layered outfits in reds and golds from India. Pencil skirts and elaborate corsets. Bizarre and oftentimes disturbing costumes from Halloweens stretching back to the 1900s.

You don’t question Aradia much. She’s harmless, or at least doesn’t intend anybody any harm. You know there’s a difference, but with Aradia you don’t really think that difference matters much. At least, you’re very nearly certain she isn’t evil, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t above allowing terrible things to happen. You will probably never figure this woman out completely, but at least she wears something new every day.

Mostly she wears reds and blacks, but some mornings she appears in blues and grays of tougher materials and more utilitarian styles, matched with practical shoes. Today is one of those days, and the sunrise fails to wake you, hidden by heavy gray clouds promising rain.

“Hey Sollux,” Aradia nudges you awake. “It’s time to wake up. I need your help downstairs today.”

=

Aradia is back at her counter, reading her book, and you’re up to your knees in creepy dolls and blown glass turtles. Where the fuck does she get this stuff? Actually no, never mind, you don’t want to know.

The bell chimes, and through a crack in a haphazard stack of old books you see a short-haired woman in black damn near charge up to the counter before Aradia can even put her book down.

All in a rush the patron says, “Hello, my name is Rose Lalonde, and my brother came here a few weeks ago. He updated his blog with his adventures at this rather quaint house.” She puts both her hands down on the counter. “Perhaps you remember him, in fact, I know you do. Mumbly child, low self-confidence, possibly flirted with you...”

Aradia raises an eyebrow but nods, and you try very hard not to wave your hands frantically in warning. Whatever Rose is doing her is going to be bad news, you know this from experience, you know this from pure gut instinct, you know this because Jesus Christ this is _Rose Lalonde_ , She Who Knits Eldritch Monstrosities For Fun and Profit. You try not to wave because you’d probably break something, and then Rose would know you were here. You do nothing but slowly twist a badly painted Freddie Mercury nesting doll in your hands.

“Of course,” Aradia says. “What can I do for y--“

“I’m looking for a book. I’ve been looking for it for a long, long time, and I am absolutely positive this shop has it.” Fuck you don’t like how pleased Rose sounds, or how curious Aradia looks.

“What kind of book?”

“The Grimoire for Summoning the Zoologically Dubious.”

Aradia has that book. She can’t get rid of it, in fact. It’s in the wicker basket by the toilet. You’ve tried to read it now and again, partly out of a need to read everything in sight (re: functioning eyes, holy shit) and partly to see if there was a way to make it stop whispering shit while you showered. You never make it past the first two pages, and only feel better once you’ve banged your head against the tower’s south wall for a while. You fucking _hate_ that book, and you know Aradia would love to see it go too. But to Rose? Who knows what she might do with that kind of power? If luck is kind she won’t have anything worth trading--

“If you’re worried if I can pay for it, I have something,” Rose says. She opens her purse and pulls out a tube of lipstick with just the right amount of twirl for the yellow light to play against the silver case. “It’s... the only thing that really means anything to me anymore. I don’t use it. It belonged to... an ex. And they aren’t my colors.” Her voice quiets, and your mouth dries up. You know who she’s talking about.

Rose places the lipstick on the counter. Aradia takes it and opens it at an angle you can’t see, but you know the colors even if you never saw them. Kanaya was all about deep greens and stark blacks. Rose’s head is turned away until you hear Aradia put the lipstick behind the counter.

“Alright, I have the book. Hold on one second.”

Aradia walks away. It takes her a couple minutes to come back with the book, and she hands it over like she can’t decide if she’s going to regret this or not. The terrible joy on Rose’s face says worlds enough to you.

=

“Aradia, get your ass up here!”

She’s in your room in a heartbeat, and you wave her over to look at the local news tabs you have open. Each one has blurry pictures and glitching videos of a gray woman commanding an army of terrible beasts, and who the fuck else would it be but Rose “I’m going to talk to my dead cat” Lalonde?

“And I know your bleeding, liberal heart is going to ask if she killed anyone,” you snap, “and I want you to know that these tentacle beasts are straight out of a bad hentai. Which means they’re unfathomable. So while it seems no one has gotten a close enough look at the creatures, people’s heads could literally explode because of this.” You shut your laptop, joints tight and your hands tingling with red and blue sparks you can’t quite stamp out. “Do you want to go, or should I?”

“Let’s both go! We haven’t had an outing in eons.”

God, does she have to sound so happy about it? “But what about the shop?”

“Oh, it can take care of itself, it’s a big girl.”

You shrug and shove aside a lopsided pile of bird cages and hat boxes to fully expose the floor-to-ceiling window. You open it, then bend your knees and gesture for Aradia to hop on. She giggles and accepts your invitation for a piggyback ride. You crank up the energy; a red and blue aura pulsing in time with your heart surrounds you both. You jump out the window, leaving a trail of strobing colors behind you.

=

Rose was always a born strategist. Give her a board game like Risk or chess, she’d crush her opponent so neatly they’d thank her afterward. She was always lucky too. Almost always had an idea what was going to happen next and if she didn’t like it she’d weave her way out of it. That might have been all the psychology books she poured over as a kid though.

Lucky, brilliant, unflinching Rose Lalonde. That is who your friend was, not this shrieking gray-skinned Thing commanding battalions of squirming, squelching monsters towards city hall. You have to bifurcate her like that--before Kanaya’s death, and after. The book has just made the change obvious to everybody else.

Luckily for you Rose has always been a glass canon, and luckily for the bystanders you’ve been practicing your aim.

=

 It’s dark when you both reach home, and there are fireflies gathered at the back of the house. Aradia points at their flickering lights as you descend.

“I told you, you should shout ‘OPTIC BLASTH’ whenever you do that. It makes it cooler.” Aradia is too busy catching a firefly in her cupped hands to see you glare. You hate it when she pokes fun at your lisp.

“I looked like a badass out there and that would have ruined it.”

“It’s too bad we had to kill her,” she says, smiling as she peeks between her hands. “But sometimes the dead are better off than the living. Especially her. She said she had nothing left. And I trust that statement.”

You still haven’t told her that you used to know Rose. The _old_ Rose, the one that traded snarky quips with Kanaya over strong cocktails and sewing projects, the Rose who was going to be famous one day for all the right reasons, not for storming the city with an army of monsters and eldritch lightning.

“You shouldn’t have given her that Grimoire. It would have been better reading for us while taking massive shits. It would have been better here instead of out there. She could have killed random people.”

“I’m a big believer in fate, Sollux,” she replies, releasing the firefly. “You should know this by now.”

And you do, but that doesn’t mean you 1) agree with her or 2) are going to shut up. “So fate killed her then?” You put a hand to your ear. “Oh, wait, what did I just hear? Was that the crackling sound of your heart freezing up?”

“I think that things happen as they should,” she says, as stubborn as the ram she got her horns from. “That’s all. She was meant to get that book and she was meant to die by it. And I think that her story is a testament to what my shop really is.”

Nope, you’re done. If you don’t shut this argument down now you’re going to say something you’ll regret _a lot_ as soon as it leaves your mouth. You rub your temples and take a deep breath to calm down. “I’m going to go to bed early, we can talk philosophical bullshit in the morning.”

“Goodnight!”

You look at her for a few seconds, silhouetted by low-hanging moonlight and streetlamps. There’s a crown of blinking fireflies twisted through her oversized horns and enough light to see her blue smile and her old, old eyes. You will never understand her, you realize for the thousandth time since you've come to her shop, and that’s okay. You look away without reply and drift up to the third floor. The sliding glass opens all on its own for you, and you step into the dark little niche you call home. Below, Aradia giggles, and you hear her skip towards the front of the house, only to stop abruptly just as you’re reaching to close the window behind you.

Somebody’s out there with her.

You wait to hear what happens next.


	5. 0715cd

“Oh, hello! Welcome to my pawn shop,” says Aradia, never mind how late it is, “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“Well, I kind of want to get in?” A boy’s voice, hard to tell the age, and familiar _again_. Fuck. “It says ‘always open.’”

“Oh, right! Silly me.” Like she’s wrong for not keeping the place open 24/7. “That’s odd, my shop should always let you in... You must be special!”

The boy is laughing as you swiftly float out your bedroom door and down the three flights of stairs, landing behind a stack of rickety wooden chairs and cutting your lights as Aradia opens the front door. The boy looks like he just got of bed and walked here on a whim; his black hair’s all over the place, his square glasses askew. He’s wearing an old shirt with holes dotted across one hip and a pair of striped pajama pants. He doesn’t have any shoes on, and even before Aradia flips the lights on you can see his eyes are the same as hers--old as old and full of laughter at the world and all that’s going on throughout it.

He beelines for the back-left corner where you are, and for one heart stopping moment you think he’s spotted you, but he passes you by to thumb through the movie posters instead.

Aradia unbuttons her jacket, shrugging it off her shoulders. “So what can I help you with?”

He pulls out a poster from an obscure direct-to-video 80’s movie to get a better look at it in the light. “Um... I’m not sure.”

“Well, why did you decide to come here at this odd hour?”

He sets the poster back down, his attention zeroed in on a yellow Game Boy Color. “That’s a good question.”

“How long were you waiting outside?”

“I think since my sister came. But I didn’t climb up the steps until recently.” This is the same kid who told you this was a pawn shop, or at least his voice is a dead ringer for it. He looks a lot like Jade--maybe this is that wandering brother of hers? If he is he’s got his timing off; you walked into Aradia’s shop weeks before Dave showed up with twenty-five cameras and a smirk you dearly wanted to laser off. Jade had come later, hadn’t she? Then again, time is funny in this shop. He could be right, you could be right, or hell, you _both_ could be right.

“What’s your sister’s name?”

“Um... I don’t remember that either.”

Aradia smiles and makes a nearly imperceptible ‘ah-ha’ noise. Your Doom-o-meter dips sharply into the fuckedville zone.

“Do you remember your name?”

“No.”

“Would you like to?”

“I guess...” He continues to fiddle with the Game Boy, even though it’s out of batteries. You wonder if it’s jogging any memories, or if the kid finds it easier to fiddle with a broken handheld instead of looking Aradia in the eyes.

“Was your sister’s name Jade?”

He looks at her sharply, setting down the Game Boy. “I think so. Do you know something about her?”

“She came by a while ago. She traded this--” Aradia holds up the green rubber band she took from Jade Harley. “--for a stuffed dog.”

“She would do that,” he says fondly. “Can I have that green thing?”

“This is a pawn shop!” Aradia says. “You will have to trade me for it!”

He looks down at himself, patting his hips where pockets would be if he wasn’t in his pajamas. “I don’t have anything to trade...”

“Sure you do! It can be anything.”

You bite your lip. You know where this is going.

“Alright...” The boy turns his head towards the ceiling, closing his eyes. He takes a few deep breaths, and while he does this you stick your head out from behind the stack of chairs to mouth _what the fuck_ at Aradia. She just winks. The boy looks back at Aradia before you can make a number of rude gestures you learned off the Internet. “Okay,” he says, sounding determined. “I know what I’ll trade. I’ll trade me.”

“Are you sure?” Aradia asks, like she hadn’t basically cornered him into doing just that. “You might want to ask the last person who traded themselves how they feel about it. He’s kind of a grumpy-butt.” Oh, you are gonna _kill her_ \-- “You’ll be stuck around here for as long as I need you.”

“Well, I don’t think I have anywhere else to go, so I’m sure. Can I trade you for that rubber band? I really want it.”

Aradia nods, then asks him to hold out his hand. He does, and she slips the green band onto his pinky finger.

“Oh,” says the boy. “My name is John. This is my memory... Jade must have taken it with her after our house burned down.

He folds his hands together, looking down as if in prayer. Aradia jerks her head towards the stairs, looking at you pointedly. Yeah yeah, you get the message. You float your way partly up the first flight as Aradia asks, “Your house burned down?”

“Yes, we were all asleep. Jade was out at the time--“ John gasps, grabs Aradia by her bare shoulders and shakes her. “Is she doing okay?”

Aradia laughs. “Yes! I think she’s doing just fine out there.”

He lets go. Good on him, because you were about the pull him off her if he didn’t. “Good, because we’re--or we were--the best damn siblings out there! I wouldn’t want her fretting over me any more than she already did.” He punches the air, and then he _actually mock bows_. Your life is officially over. “So, now that I’m your servant, what would you have me do, great Master?”

Aradia giggles. “Well, the first thing to do is meet Sollux! He’s my other helper. Then I guess you can start dusting if you want.”

“Sweet deal!”

“He’s upstairs. I’m sure he would like you jumping on him during his rest.”

“Alright!” He wrings his hands together and laughs, and you flee to higher levels as he begins to tiptoe up the stairs.

 

=

Later, when John Egbert has commandeered your futon and is gently drooling on your favorite pillow, you go down to the first floor. Aradia is still there, walking quietly up and down the aisles like a queen surveying her realm. You watch her put the dead Game Boy on a shelf, roll up the discarded movie poster. She turns off the light and stands there in the dark, filling her lungs with the dusty air.

You don’t understand much yet. You’ve spent half your life without eyes; you’re too used to sticking to easy patterns, but now things are different. Everything about the shop--not to mention Aradia herself--is a tangle of confusing information. Colors are still wonderful to you, words and numbers even more so. Your life in Aradia’s Pawn Shop is mostly quiet and mostly strange, and sometimes you wonder where you would be now if you had never put on her magic 3D glasses. Would Rose still be alive? That’s a question that hurts to think about too long, and it will probably remain so for a long time.

But then again, maybe Aradia is right. Maybe Rose and her eldritch invocations are a testament to what the shop stands for. Maybe Rose was always going to burn out quickly; grief, in your opinion, never did suit her. Maybe it was better to burn all the tough times and, with a little luck and a little magic, find some forgotten treasure in the ashes.

Christ, Aradia’s getting to you. You’re pretty sure you just called _John Egbert_ a treasure in that metaphor.

“Go to bed, you idiot,” you say.

“Coming,” she murmurs, and takes your hand.


End file.
